The private copying levy for refurbished products, such as smartphones, will soon be abolished.

This tax makes it possible to remunerate authors and performers for the reproduction of their works on certain types of recording media (smartphone, tablets, computers, etc.) when purchasing a device.

The Council of State validated its abolition, this Monday, for reconditioned products, reports the online media l'Informé.

The highest administrative court therefore followed the recommendations of the public rapporteur.

At the end of November, the latter had recommended canceling the decision to apply this fee to all storage devices, explains Phonandroid.

A supplement paid several times

For many years now, the private copying levy has been paid by buyers of electronic devices incorporating internal data storage such as computers, tablets or hard drives.

But, from November 2021, at the request of rights holders, reconditioned products were also subject to the tax.

However, this had already been settled by the first owner.

The measure implied that each buyer of a refurbished smartphone pays an additional 7 to 8 euros to acquire the device.

UFC-Que Choisir and the union of professionals linked to refurbished products challenged the measure before the Council of State.

In November 2022, the public rapporteur recommended that this decision be reversed.

A defect of form

The cancellation of this fee is due to a procedural irregularity.

When it was a question of voting the amounts applied to each type of product, the commission was incomplete, some members being absent during the ballot.

The defect of form appeared flagrant to the Council of State, which therefore followed the opinion of the rapporteur.



The private copying levy for refurbished devices will therefore disappear from February 1, 2023 only.

If you have already purchased a device before this date, the decision of the Council of State is not retroactive.

It will thus be impossible to request a refund of the tax.

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  • high tech

  • Royalty fee

  • smartphone

  • Tax

  • Board of state